


the river below

by sevenfoxes



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-10
Updated: 2013-06-10
Packaged: 2017-12-14 12:13:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/836744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenfoxes/pseuds/sevenfoxes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ariadne catches Arthur down by the bridge a little less than a day before the timer is set to run out.  It’s close to midnight, but the water is bright, lit from below like a swimming pool.  The water is unnaturally clear as well, no hint of the muddy life that normally clings to a river.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the river below

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this [gif on tumblr](http://sevensneakyfoxes.tumblr.com/post/52010678172/they-are-trapped-on-the-first-level-for-a-week).

They are trapped on the first level for a week.

Eames stays with Fischer as Browning, hiding in plain sight as is his fashion. Eames is a gambler with everything save his life, and despite the seeming vulnerability of hiding amongst Fischer’s very militarized projections, he is, in fact, the safest of all of them. 

Yusuf builds himself a bunker to replace the small house near the beach he had originally planned to hide out in, a nervous wreck since the disaster on the bridge. Arthur’s safehouse is actually a penthouse apartment in the financial district, while Ariadne waits out the last few days in a loft filled with half-finished abstract paintings that smells sickeningly of citrus and turpentine. It’s too dangerous to stay together, and the minutes tick by slowly, lonely as they all wait out the clock apart.

She is less than a mile from the river. In the mornings, she can hear the mechanical whirl of the bridge as it raises and lowers for the figments of Fischer’s mind.

(Arthur calls her every six hours like clockwork. He won’t say it, but she thinks he believes Fischer and his projections are more likely to suss her out, his mind familiar with her face, with the feel of who she is in the dreams.)

Ariadne catches Arthur down by the bridge a little less than a day before the timer is set to run out. It’s close to midnight, but the water is bright, lit from below like a swimming pool. The water is unnaturally clear as well, no hint of the muddy life that normally clings to a river.

From here, Ariadne can see the floating bodies still trapped in the van, the gentle currents rustling hair and limbs.

Arthur jumps when she places a hand on the smooth, cool leather of his jacket, the shoulder beneath it hard and tense. He calms instantly when he sees her, the tension building between his eyes smoothing.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he scolds her lightly. 

Ariadne settles beside him. “Neither should you. And yet here we both are.”

They spend a moment in silence, watching the city of Fischer’s mind sleep before them. Arthur’s eyes flicker constantly back to the unnaturally calm river before them, the river they pulled themselves out of with only half their team.

“He’s not coming back,” Arthur says. To anyone else, his tone would sound flat, uncaring. But Ariadne knows better. Eames taught her how to read Arthur well over the weeks they spent training, the painful tells that scream out if you know how to spot them. She never bothered asking him how he knew, whatever history painted between them oblique but readable without explanation.

“You’re not responsible for him, Arthur,” Ariadne says. There is no comfort that Arthur will accept, but she feels compelled to give it anyway. He looks young in a way only fear brings out in him, so calmly confident and composed, even when he’s trembling inside. So rarely does she ever see this - see him betray his feelings, his believed shortcomings.

He turns to her, his eyes travelling to rest on the hand she has gripping the rock, close enough to his that if she twitched she could brush the tight skin of his knuckle. “You’re wrong,” he tells her. “I am responsible. For him.” He pauses momentarily, eyes drifting up to the nasty cut starting just below her collarbone that winds up across her neck that she got breaking free of the van. “For you.”

From below, air bubbles float up, breaking the surface of the water above the van.


End file.
